


I Would Know Her When We Meet

by captainoflifeandlemons



Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Slight Canon Divergence, no actual death but lots of contemplation of death/dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 00:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15231297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainoflifeandlemons/pseuds/captainoflifeandlemons
Summary: Anthony Partridge has lived in the Blackroom for decades, cut off from the outside world. He's old, he's dying, and he's ready to open his final catbox, dammit.





	I Would Know Her When We Meet

Anthony Partridge was dying.

That in and of itself wasn’t new, wasn’t any sort of grand revelation. He’d been dying for years, for an entire lifetime, across multiple iterations of the universe. But it drew close, closer than it had ever been. It was as imminent as anything could be in his cell outside of time.

Which, it had to be said, was not particularly imminent. He figured that he might have years, still. Certainly months. But Anthony had stopped for Death, as it were, the moment they sent him to the Blackroom; Death was finally catching up. 

Standing before what was once the computer terminal he used to relay messages across the decades (dormant for ages, now), he surveyed his solitary kingdom.

It wasn’t bad, as prisons went. It almost looked like _somewhere_ , like a part of the universe. Decades back he’d taken dozens of boxes and crates apart and walled off about two-thirds of boundary. The mixed shades of brown with book jackets and photographs (one a faded picture of himself and Helen, placed slightly apart from the others) tacked up against them weren't exactly classy, but preferable to the empty darkness still visible on the other side of the Blackroom. His original plan had been to cover all of it in the hopes of forgetting where he was and always would be, but he hadn’t quite been able to cut off his distant view of Sally’s arrival in the past—the present—this moment outside of time. And also, he’d run out of building material.

A few of the other boxes had been converted into shelves, most of which were packed with paperbacks. The record player (which he’d carefully kept in good repair, replacing parts with broken pieces from the first one they’d sent him) sat beside one of these, playing music that Anthony had heard so many times it faded into the background, like the hum of the boundary or the beating of his own heart. It was almost always on, these days. When he was younger he preferred words, liked to listen to audio dramas and recorded news broadcasts and bits of stolen dialogue from the Archive and his own life. He knew the lines by heart, would recite them aloud as if that could bring him back to the time and place of the conversation, but—and he saw the irony, knew that somewhere Helen and Sally and _Bill Donovan_ were laughing—eventually even Anthony Partridge grew tired of hearing his own voice.

After all, he’d grown tired of just about everything else. Reading the same books, watching the same movies, playing the same games year after year after year. There had been plenty of low points, especially in the early stages after he went dark. Keeping busy helped. He found problems, and he worked them, and when they were solved he created new problems. And there were always new problems—fixing and reprogramming the terminal, trying to find a workaround for contacting the outside world. In the early days, he’d focused on the Archive, and before that his escape. Ancient history, that hope seemed nowadays. The visit from Sam had spurred on a flurry of research into “Atypicals;” and the lack of information had led him to a new hypothesis on the multiverse theory. At one point he’d cannibalized previous projects (primarily, prototypes dreamed up by Sally for his breakout) to build a modified TAP that operated without a Timepiece. After getting it to work, Anthony had spent another year or so determining how—it shouldn’t have allowed him to see anything but the point in time he was already at. There was no going further back, and there had never been any going forward. But for some reason (his best guess, somewhat verified through a number of limited experiments) was that the abundance of tachyons flowing towards this specific point made it possible for the machine to operate in a state of temporal flux, allowing him to witness events on the Eldridge up to a few hours beyond the borders of his CAGE.

He’d witnessed Sally’s arrival dozens of times, through dozens of slight variations of the timeline. He’d seen Chet, looker younger than Anthony thought possible (had any of them ever been that young?), and listened as the man he would someday kill, had already killed, gave the same speech again and again. He watched through his window as history created itself. All the secrets of the universe, it seemed, came down to this one moment.

But the universe had no more secrets to show him, except for maybe one.

Back when he’d first broken off contact from the outside world, before he’d even created the Archive, Anthony had opened his catboxes, sixteen crates containing anything and everything until they were unpacked. That is, he had opened all of them but one.

He was confident that he knew what the final box held. That’s why he had refrained from opening it, as long as he could. But now—he was old, and didn’t have much time left. Ironic, perhaps, for the man outside of it.

It was in the corner of the room. He’d been using it as a bench, actually; the box was long enough that he could lay down on top of it. He pulled the blanket off of it, removed the books stacked in the corner, and dragged it a little further into the middle of the room.

When he’d first arrived and was still running messages for ODAR, he’d dedicated a lot of time to guessing what the catboxes might hold, what he would ask for in the future. He had even thought about this day, envisioned a time when he was sick, or injured, or reaching the end of his allotted years, and might open one to find the cause of his death. Thought about it, but not believed in it, not really. He believed now.

He wasn’t afraid of dying. He wasn’t particularly keen on the idea, but he had lived a long life. He had even saved the world, not that the world would ever know. Though he had regrets—sometimes they were all he had—he wasn’t afraid. Just curious about the manner of his demise, the final puzzle left to him.

Dr. Partridge, in the Blackroom, with the paradoxical storage unit. 

Slowly, carefully, Anthony slid open the lid. He stared into the box and was overwhelmed with a desire to punch Chet Whickman’s smarmy face—but then he got a closer look.

The object inside was long, filling the box almost entirely, and made of some smooth material. For one moribund moment he’d thought it was a coffin ( _what kind of sick joke)_ , but it couldn’t be, not unless the funeral industry had changed vastly towards the end of the century. Whickman’s face was safe for now, not that he was exactly within striking range.

Which still left the question—what the hell _was_ it? His final wish, the last of the catboxes: a metallic sarcophagus with a darkened panel on one end. Anthony laid a hand against the panel. It was cool beneath his hand. The entire container was, for that matter, cold to the touch and humming with some sort of energy, big enough to fit a…

Ah. Of course.

Before losing contact he had wondered when his replacement would come, and how. He’d never envisioned this. Of course, he hadn’t known how far ODAR’s research into cryogenics had come. Still, it seemed cruel. If he hadn’t used up most of his reservoirs of pity on himself and humanity at large long ago, he would have mourned on the behalf of this stranger who had spent the past decades (in the arbitrary sense that the word held here) sleeping in this silver crypt, only to wake and find that there was no job here to be done.

But as it was, he couldn’t muster the strength for empathy, not when he had a chance at one last conversation or two before settling in for an even longer nap himself.

He pressed a hand down on the panel, harder this time, hoping for some response. There was none. Anthony tore the sides of the box apart, searching for the seam in the cryo chamber, but it was too fine to pry open. He kicked at it, pulled, until finally, in a voice that he barely recognized as his own, he called out.

“Damn it all, will you just _open_ already?”

The usual stillness of the air was cut through with an audible hiss, and then the pod opened. A cloud of fog rolled out; from within it, a figure sat up, coughing as lungs remembered how to take in oxygen.

The air cleared, and it was Anthony’s turn to forget how to breath.

This wasn’t his replacement. This wasn’t ODAR imposing their will. This was his last wish, the only one he’d had in years. This was Whickman making good on his words.

“Hello, world,” the figure said, tone heavy with age and experience and cryo fluid. She was old now, but time didn’t mean much here, and Anthony would have known her anywhere.

Anthony Partridge was dying, and Sally Grissom had come back to join him.

“Hi, world. It’s Anthony.”

**Author's Note:**

> When Anthony first mentioned the catboxes, I was struck with a wild hope that somehow, Sally would be in one of them, and that together they would break out of the Blackroom. Their universe, it seems, had other plans for these two scientists, but the thought stuck with me, and I wanted to explore how it might have played out if Anthony hadn't opened all of his catboxes after cutting off contact with ODAR. And hey, maybe they do escape the Blackroom. Or maybe they just spend the rest of their days trapped there together, reminiscing about Helen and Nikhil and everyone else they've left behind. Anything could happen, at least in some iteration of the timeline. 
> 
> The title is an allusion to Sarah Williams' "The Old Astronomer" (perhaps more widely known as "The Old Astronomer to his Pupil"). I was going to pick out a few lines that seemed the most relevant and show them here, but frankly, the entire poem has strong Anthony Partridge vibes (and also I just love it dearly), so here's the whole thing:
> 
> Reach me down my Tycho Brahé,—I would know him when we meet,  
> When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;  
> He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how  
> We are working to completion, working on from then till now.
> 
> Pray, remember, that I leave you all my theory complete,  
> Lacking only certain data, for your adding, as is meet;  
> And remember, men will scorn it, ’tis original and true,  
> And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
> 
> But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learnt the worth of scorn;  
> You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn;  
> What, for us, are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles?  
> What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles?
> 
> You may tell that German College that their honour comes too late.  
> But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate;  
> Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;  
> I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.
> 
> What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight;  
> You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night.  
> I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known.  
> You “have none but me,” you murmur, and I “leave you quite alone”?
> 
> Well then, kiss me,—since my mother left her blessing on my brow,  
> There has been a something wanting in my nature until now;  
> I can dimly comprehend it,—that I might have been more kind,  
> Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind.
> 
> I “have never failed in kindness”? No, we lived too high for strife,—  
> Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life;  
> But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still  
> To the service of our science: you will further it? you will!
> 
> There are certain calculations I should like to make with you,  
> To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true;  
> And remember, “Patience, Patience,” is the watchword of a sage,  
> Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age.
> 
> I have sown, like Tycho Brahé, that a greater man may reap;  
> But if none should do my reaping, ’twill disturb me in my sleep.  
> So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name;  
> See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame.
> 
> I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak;  
> Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak:  
> It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,—  
> God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.
> 
> (from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Old_Astronomer)


End file.
